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17/01/12

Anti-piracy acronyms close Wikipedia

Wikipedia closes for the day to protest against SOPA and PIPA.

Anti-piracy legislation is being debated in the US - The Stop Online Piracy Act in the House of Representatives and The Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate. If passed, they would enable vigorous action to be taken against websites enabling or facilitating piracy of copyright material such as streamed video. Some think that this could cause problems for sites perhaps inadvertently providing links to infringing sites. Wikipedia decided to close for a day (18 January 2012) in protest. The conflict between media companies that wish to protect their products and websites that wish to be free to provide all kinds of information continues. It is unlikely that the law will find an easy resolution of the contrary legitimate demands of the warring factions.